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Forums - Sony - Love the Heavy Rain demo, not impressed with graphics

Skeeuk on 01 March 2010

grafix are mixed bag at times, but overall its a deffo 9+ for grafix some of the scenes look amazing



...not much time to post anymore, used to be awesome on here really good fond memories from VGchartz...

PSN: Skeeuk - XBL: SkeeUK - PC: Skeeuk

really miss the VGCHARTZ of 2008 - 2013...

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CommonMan on 01 March 2010
CGI-Quality said:
CommonMan said:
There are some really hinky things going on graphically in this game (finished it last night BTW and loved it!). The facial animations are second to none, most of the time, sometimes the models would hang their mouths open or snap them shut at weird intervals. You can really see their feelings in their faces though, which is amazing. Some environments were so detailed it was rediculous (the graveyard jumps to mind, and Ethan's house in the beginning) and some are jaggy and missing textures (thinking of some of the on the front porch of the house/trailer scenes). It was uneven and occasionally pulled me out of the game. Not a huge deal though. I would have much preferred they had pulled some of their graphical resources and hired some American voice actors and had classes on how to say "Origami".

A fair approach and one I agree with (in terms of some of the negatives).

Thanks CGI! In my opinion, Quantic Dream has delivered completely, now to see if Remedy does as well. Could be a lot of fun this year!



No one in the world ever gets what they want, and that is beautiful.

Reasonable on 01 March 2010
CGI-Quality said:
Reasonable said:
I kind of agree - although that's based on the demo only. Hopefully (assuming I both get my new fat PS3 replacement tomorrow and I'm actually able to turn it on without fear of trouble) I will soon check out the retail game.

But based on the demo while the graphics are good overall they aren't full on wow in the way that, for example, Uncharted 2's were.

The overall impression was strong, but animation of movement seemed a little artificial and even stiff at times. Most of the time the facial animation was truly fantastic, particularly closeups, but there were some funny tics here and there.

Most of the textures, objects, etc. looked very good but again there were a few weak elements here and there - although I did think the rain looked good plus the effect of the FBI agent's glasses struck me as very nice.

Truth be told I wasn't expecting Heavy Rain to be the most amazing technical game ever visually, not based on Fahrenheit anyway, so what I saw looked good enough for me - although some of the stiff animation surprised me as that was the main area I was perhaps expecting QD to push the envelope a bit with motion capture. But currently I still find Uncharted 2 to have the most convincing human animation for walking, sitting, etc. Perhaps the full game will change my mind.

The most impressive element for me visually was how the animations during the 'big moments' like the fight really did blend wonderfully together no matter what you did. That was very good as I expected funny 'snaps' between animations depending upon whether you hit the QTE right or not but didn't see any despite repeated playthroughs where I deliberate altered what QTEs I got right and which I missed.

But yeah, if you thought that this was going to be the most visually amazing title yet on console in every department the unfortunately based on the demo it's not.

Like I tell most people, the two scenes in the demo weren't among the best in the game itself. I thin soem of the later environments (especially indoor ones) are a sight. Yes, some stiff animations and Uncharted 2 overall does blend them together a bit better, but the character models themselves are significantly ahead of Uncharted 2's.

It's not perfect though, sometimes the full game can be a mixed bag (though not frequently) and with this being their first title on PS3, I suspect they could polish up the engine and jump out with something fresh again. Drake's Fortune had it's share of problems that didn't plague the sequel, such as frame drops and screen tearing.

Assuming Heavy Rain does well, it would be cool if they took the Uncharted 2 route of ironing out the few weak spots in the engine while taking what they learnt and turning it up to 11.

I'm really looking forward to playing this, it's been killing me having the game but no PS3 access to play it!  I agree the basic models look better than Uncharted, they just move stiffly, but I guess Uncharted engine (not sure what else to call it) has by now very refined looking animation blending techniques.

Well, all being well tomorrow I'll finally get to play the retail version.

 



Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...

pbroy on 01 March 2010

I played the demo and couldn't figure out how to have sex with the hooker. I'm pissed!!!

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Domicinator on 01 March 2010

I think Heavy Rain is a terrific game and I'm having a lot of fun with it. The story is cool (though the voice acting could use a little work in some spots), but it's a nice break from all the shooting and blowing things up that I do in a lot of my other games.

That being said, I do feel like the graphics are hit and miss. There are some parts of this game that look insanely good, but the character models up close are not always that great. Peoples' hands look disproportionate to their bodies, and their faces look ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like they do in the load screens. I feel like the marketing of this game wanted me to believe that the graphics on the load screens are the norm for the whole game, and they are definitely not.

But graphics often don't make the game, and this game is still a blast and very engaging. AND that's not to say that the graphics aren't great--they are great. But not mind blowing. I'm still more impressed by Uncharted 2 overall in the graphics department.




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chocoloco on 01 March 2010
pbroy said:
I played the demo and couldn't figure out how to have sex with the hooker. I'm pissed!!!

This epic failure convinced me that it's just a childs game!



Reasonable on 02 March 2010
CGI-Quality said:
Reasonable said:
I kind of agree - although that's based on the demo only. Hopefully (assuming I both get my new fat PS3 replacement tomorrow and I'm actually able to turn it on without fear of trouble) I will soon check out the retail game.

But based on the demo while the graphics are good overall they aren't full on wow in the way that, for example, Uncharted 2's were.

The overall impression was strong, but animation of movement seemed a little artificial and even stiff at times. Most of the time the facial animation was truly fantastic, particularly closeups, but there were some funny tics here and there.

Most of the textures, objects, etc. looked very good but again there were a few weak elements here and there - although I did think the rain looked good plus the effect of the FBI agent's glasses struck me as very nice.

Truth be told I wasn't expecting Heavy Rain to be the most amazing technical game ever visually, not based on Fahrenheit anyway, so what I saw looked good enough for me - although some of the stiff animation surprised me as that was the main area I was perhaps expecting QD to push the envelope a bit with motion capture. But currently I still find Uncharted 2 to have the most convincing human animation for walking, sitting, etc. Perhaps the full game will change my mind.

The most impressive element for me visually was how the animations during the 'big moments' like the fight really did blend wonderfully together no matter what you did. That was very good as I expected funny 'snaps' between animations depending upon whether you hit the QTE right or not but didn't see any despite repeated playthroughs where I deliberate altered what QTEs I got right and which I missed.

But yeah, if you thought that this was going to be the most visually amazing title yet on console in every department the unfortunately based on the demo it's not.

Like I tell most people, the two scenes in the demo weren't among the best in the game itself. I thin soem of the later environments (especially indoor ones) are a sight. Yes, some stiff animations and Uncharted 2 overall does blend them together a bit better, but the character models themselves are significantly ahead of Uncharted 2's.

It's not perfect though, sometimes the full game can be a mixed bag (though not frequently) and with this being their first title on PS3, I suspect they could polish up the engine and jump out with something fresh again. Drake's Fortune had it's share of problems that didn't plague the sequel, such as frame drops and screen tearing.

Well, just got my replacement PS3 delivered - so unless I'm really unlucky - i.e. the thing doesn't work when I plug it in - I should be able to dive into the full game later tonight.  Fantastic.  I'm really looking forward to it.

 



Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...

Domicinator on 07 March 2010
CGI-Quality said:
Domicinator said:
I think Heavy Rain is a terrific game and I'm having a lot of fun with it. The story is cool (though the voice acting could use a little work in some spots), but it's a nice break from all the shooting and blowing things up that I do in a lot of my other games.

That being said, I do feel like the graphics are hit and miss. There are some parts of this game that look insanely good, but the character models up close are not always that great. Peoples' hands look disproportionate to their bodies, and their faces look ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like they do in the load screens. I feel like the marketing of this game wanted me to believe that the graphics on the load screens are the norm for the whole game, and they are definitely not.

But graphics often don't make the game, and this game is still a blast and very engaging. AND that's not to say that the graphics aren't great--they are great. But not mind blowing. I'm still more impressed by Uncharted 2 overall in the graphics department.

The models are the same all around. No detail was raised or lowered, it's just that the loading screens are in direct lighting, but they are no different in the game. I have to find the link confirming this, and I will but some scenes up close, particularly some of the police station scenes, show the same level of detail. You can't expect the whole game to have up-close detail when the whole game isn't up-close though. Cage has also explained this. Looking closely at the load screens, you can see lower res textures, just like they look up close in the game.

The rest of your post is fair, but that needed to be addressed.

By the end of this game, I had changed my tune a little bit about the graphics.  Actually, I just finished my first playthrough this morning!!  

There are some scenes in the game that look sub par---but they are overshadowed by the parts of the game that look absolutely INCREDIBLE.  (The dance club scene sticks out in my mind as well as the graveyard scene.)  It's hard to talk about this game without giving things away, so I will stop there, but I guess having seen one complete run through of the story, in general I'm pretty impressed by the graphics.  

This was a hard game for me to play through because I also have a young son, but I had a lot of fun with it and I know that when I catch up on all the other stuff I'm playing, I'll want to play through it again two or three more times just to see some of the various endings.  This game was well worth the release day price I paid for it, and I am also glad to see that it sold better than analysts thought it would.




FranTic91 on 07 March 2010

Heavy Rain's character models look great; The 2006 tech demo looks much better...In terms of consistency



FranTic91 on 07 March 2010
CGI-Quality said:
FranTic91 said:
Heavy Rain's character models look great; The 2006 tech demo looks much better...In terms of consistency

Not even close. If anything, the 2006 tech demo had more inconsistencies: big teeth, lips not syncing properly, missing shadows, and lower-res polygons. In most cases, the difference was night and day.

The prostitute character in the game is reportedly the same woman who was in the tech demo.

She looks  leagues better in the tech demo.